


New Beginnings

by kikibug13



Category: Generation X (Comic)
Genre: F/M, Memory Loss, Reunions, missing body parts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 10:06:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2808536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikibug13/pseuds/kikibug13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Paige has been <i>husked</i> out until she felt hollow, until she couldn't even speak to those who wouldn't answer. And then the person she least expected shows up, and she's almost forgotten the kind of magic he can do, with people who have nothing left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kallanda_Lee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kallanda_Lee/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, dear recipient! I think this story may be a little more melancholy than it could have been, but here it is, and there is hope for where things may go, after. Have a wonderful holiday season!

Paige was sitting down on the grass. Her knees were drawn up, and her chin was resting on top of her arms, elbows on top of the knees. She wasn't really seeing much, even though her eyes were open. 

She could see the gravestone, anyway. 

She didn't remember a lot of things, from the recent... weeks? _Months_? It was hard to tell. (Toad, Paige? Really?) She didn't know who'd actually done it to her, and, right now, she didn't care. She needed her family, but she couldn't go home (God, how could she ever, when she couldn't keep her little brother safe...) and Sam was busy, and so she was sitting here with the one member of the family that couldn't get away. The one who wouldn't really judge her. Even if she didn't actually say anything. 

Especially if she didn't _say_ anything. He couldn't answer back if she did.

There were steps, kind of heavy, the kind of rhythm that gave her a buzz, and she didn't look up. He would pass by, right? There were a lot of dead people to visit.

Except he didn't, staying a little behind her. Stalking, she imagined. Waiting for to move, so he could attack. Leaning against the tree, maybe. Ready to pounce. If she didn't stand up, he'd pounce, anyway. 

Teeth clenched, she ground out, "Ah'm not nearly as defenceless as ah look. Whatever you might be thinking, quit it." 

" _I knew that, luv._ "

The words didn't come in through her ears. Instead, they resonated in her _bones_ , in a familiar way that gave her a tingle all the way down to her stomach, as it always had. Through the years, she'd had a fair few people who ended up talking inside her head. Nobody, and she meant _nobody_ , could be mistaken for this 'voice.' 

"Jono!" She was standing on her feet before the name was out of her mouth, and she didn't even _think_ about how long she'd been sitting until her legs buckled, despite her unexpected, absolute joy of seeing him again. Good thing he was right there and caught her. He was wearing the scarf, and the eyes above it crinkled at her, and she could _breathe_ again, breathe and move and think, and she buried her face into his shoulder (more like his upper arm, but still) and, to her own surprise, cried. Cried hard and long and then cried some more. His arms were safely wrapped around her, so Paige. 

Paige let it all go. 

Eventually, the tears eased up, and she found herself sagging against him, the energy that thrummed in his body, silent but constant, sheltering her close.

"Ah'm sorry, Jono. That's probably not what you showed up for."

" _No, but you seem to've needed it. Life hasn't been good, recently, has it?_ "

She shook her head, and then finally moved enough to raise her head and meet his eyes again, her own gunky and probably red, his calm and understanding as always, even when he doubted himself to levels that hurt, hurt him, hurt her...

He'd grown up, she could see. Whatever self-doubt was there, it was restrained, held in check. Like an old enemy that you knew absolutely. Instead, she could see hope, in there. It made her heart jump. She stepped back, half a step, without letting him go, and then one of her hands came up to cup the side of his face, fingers against his warm skin, the pads of her palm against the fabric of the scarf, and the empty-not-empty space, there. 

For the first time since Toad broke her free from whatever happened to her exactly, she wanted to actually be this close to somebody. Wanted to _kiss_ somebody, and a part of her wondered if it was real, or an echo of what had been there between them back when they were teenagers and the world had been simpler. Kinder. 

And then she wondered if it even mattered.

She took a deep breath, and Jono's eyebrows rose, a little, as if he knew what she was going to ask. Or maybe he was mocking her, in a friendly manner, about her building up courage to speak to him. And now that part really seemed familiar, and Paige could feel her cheeks flushing a little.

"Uhm. If Ah kiss you here, do you think you can avoid blowing up the cemetery?" 

A moment, and the corner of his eyes crinkled in the shared memory. " _Probably, but maybe we don't have to try it here._ "

They didn't. Instead, they walked out of the graveyard, hand in hand, and she asked him how he had been and he answered, and they wandered around the early-winter-evening quiet streets hand in hand, because it was easy and his hand was warm and the touch grounded her. She spoke less, not proud of her recent past, and so sad about the loss that was still to recent, but she spoke, anyway. He always made it so easy, to help people who were outcasts, outsiders, who'd made mistakes, relax into his company. She never had _been_ that outsider before, and maybe that's why she'd developed that crush, possibly. Because she hadn't needed him and he hadn't needed her and yet there was something about him that made her more alive.

She needed him now.

When they finally kissed, it was kind of like the first time, with less actual explosion. However the scarf contained his psionic energy, when he put his mind to it, it could move under her lips and tongue just right. It made her wonder if it would feel similarly without the scarf, or if it would burn her face. And if it did, if she would care. She could husk that off, after all. Then his hand was at her back, arm wrapped warmly and snugly around her body, and his thumb was moving to caress her back through the jacket and she stilled, looking up.

"Ah might not remember it." It terrified her, a little. That they could have something important, something they might have... they _had_ wanted since they met, or a little bit after, and then whatever had happened to her might be still affecting her and she might not... remember. 

It terrified her that she could hurt him with it.

His other hand came to brush blond strands from the side of her face, his eyes serious. " _But I will._ " It was strange, in some sci-fi books (yes, she had read some of those, a long time ago) when people insisted you couldn't lie with mental speech. You could. Paige knew that, she'd spent a long time alongside Emma Frost. But she also knew... she _knew_ , that Jono wasn't lying. And that made all the difference.


End file.
